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Does turning the air conditioning off when you're not home actually save energy?

Energy consumption and temperature profiles graphs.

Hot summer days can mean high electricity bills. People want to stay comfortable without wasting energy and money. Maybe your household has fought over the best strategy for cooling your space.

Which is more efficient: running the air conditioning all summer long without break, or turning it off during the day when you’re not there to enjoy it?

A team from the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering set out to find the answer.

Check out the results of work by Assistant Professor Kyri Baker, Assistant Teaching Professor Jennifer Scheib, and architectural engineering PhD student Aisling Pigott in a new column in The Conversation.